


A Crooked Child

by Gnarled_Bone



Category: The Wolf Among Us
Genre: Crooked Man is not a good man, F/F, Reader Insert, Reader WAS a Mundy, Reader doesn't have a good backstory, Reader is a hobo and bartender, Reader-Insert, Self Insert, Self-Insert, and you don't really have a choice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-08 15:55:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5503796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gnarled_Bone/pseuds/Gnarled_Bone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mundies aren't as oblivious as the Fables like to think. After all, how else would they have known to find you, train you, use you? But you're not a Mundy anymore yourself, so why bother helping the hand that sure as hell doesn't feed you? With this mindset, you flee to Fabletown, and live your life on the streets, waiting for the inevitable, cataclysmic conflict that will result between the ARD and the entirety of the Fable population.</p><p>[On hiatus indefinitely. Subject to being discontinued or rewritten.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Crooked Child

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smackthatbuttvictoriachase](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smackthatbuttvictoriachase/gifts).



New York can get pretty cold—this is something you realize while scurrying along alleys with chilly rain dripping from your clothes like you've been dunked into a bath-sized toilet. Your fabric of your clothes has thinned with how long you've worn them and it makes you shivering worse. You can't do anything about that, not at this time and in this town, no less.

Fabletown—a little section in New York that the rest of the world failed to notice. That is, most of the world. The people in ARD are the ones that actually revealed its existence to you. Is it ironic that you use it to hide from them? Maybe. They'll find you eventually, and you've be back to sniffing out all the peculiarities in the world, being forced to go along with their _wonderful_ ambitions. Or you'll be dead. Or worse, put in in the cage for an indeterminate amount of time and used in their damned experiments. What a load of shit.

You fold your arms and bunch up your shoulders, trying to rub warmth back into your biceps. Your walking down the alley you're in, feeling the grimy city floors because of the hole in the sole of your sneaker. How long have you been wearing these clothes? You've lost count. The rain's making your hair stick to face and you grab the irritating strands and push them away. You think its been a while since you cut your hair too.

You humming under your breath, nearing the mouth of the alley after passing a dumpster, and your unsung song stops in your throat as you catch sight of a crude poster taking up space on the side of a building. You saw the torso of a man, lower regions thankfully covered by what could be a thong. Your face twitches, and you stick your tongue out. "Bleh. No."

You rub the hair from your forehead again. The rain is beginning to grow heavier, and it's starting to make your body go numb. You exit the alley and look around, seeing a neon hotel sign to your right and decorative VIP ropes to the left. Coughing, you turn left and find that those ropes lead to the renowned ribbon strip club, the Pudding & Pie, which was also a hub for prostitution,. Not a good place to be around, even in the daytime. You think it's pretty convenient for the workers to have a hotel so near.

You're rounding to go right when you hear a door open. Turning around, you see woman with short blonde hair and an umbrella step out from the stripper club. You cringe at the sight of the ribbon on her neck—you know the stories, it was pretty much required in your line of work—but you don't know if it's really the ribbon like in the tale.

She spots you before you can pretend you didn't see her. She looks at you, a flash of emotion coming onto her face and vanishing just as fast, with your sagging, dripping clothing, and her expression softens from pity. You restrain the urge to bare your teeth at her.

"Lost?" she asks you. 

You shake your head. You don't need to know where you're going, because you're not looking for anything.  
  
"It's pretty cold out here." she says, like it isn't obvious from the way your shaking. She lowers her eyes, seems to be thinking, before raises them to stare into you. "You can stay in there, if you want. I can convince Georgie to leave you be." 

She gestures to the stripper club. You stare at her quietly in contemplation, and tilt your head to glance at the building for a moment. It's true, you've been in worse places, but you can't say you've been in such places in _Fabletown_. Who knows what could happen?  
  
Your skin feels like ice though, and it's not like you could get murdered easily, not without a fight with all the ARD has done to you. So you drop your head into a nod, and mutter, "Okay," over the sound of the rain. "but what's your name?"  
  
"Vivian," she answers, and takes you in.

* * *

"What's your story?" Georgie asks, frowning, sidled up on the couch with his arms thrown over the back.

You expected this, and the lie that comes forth doesn't sound rehearsed with how the ARD made sure you were efficient in every manner, even in deceit. "I came from the Homelands, same as any other Fable. Unlike most, though, I didn't start with a story. . . I guess you could say I started without even a name."  
  
He eyes you carefully. You don't think you've made a good impression on him, dripping like a stray cat on his club's floor. "Hmph." he grunts, and decides to let well enough alone when you channel painful memories to form the broken expression on your face. Vivian comes out just in time to see it, and throws a glare at Georgie.  
  
"Have you been hassling our guest, Georgie?"  
  
"I asked her a question, is all." he answers, and you nod when she looks like she might argue.

Vivian shakes her head, and sighs. She comes up to you with a large, dark overcoat, almost too large for your frame, and a pair of shirt and jeans.   
  
"Wha—" you startle, as she pushes the clothing into your hands.   
  
She insists. "You're soaked, and I'd rather not bring you in our establishment just for you to die of hypothermia. Bad for business, and all." she teases with a small smile. Then she softens at the incredulity on your face. "We're not all bad guys, kid. Sometimes we just make bad decisions." she pauses. "Sometimes we have to follow through on them, too."   
  
For some reason, you don't think she's talking about the Pudding & Pie. Georgie turns his head halfway, so you can see one eye glare at Vivian. She hardly looks chastised by him. "What?" she asks, sounding somewhat innocent, but obviously not putting her all into it, judging by the tired smugness on her expression.

"Watch it," he warns, but you can see genuine concern in his eyes. You had to learn how to spot things like these, to find information in the cracks, and if you couldn't get anything solid, you would be forced to rely on inferences and assumptions.

You push an expression of confusion on your face, and Vivian gently grabs you by the arm and guides you to a back room that has a spare couch. "You can sleep here. I'll get you some blankets."

You take a moment to glance around. "Thanks," you say, quietly, awkwardly. How long has it been since someone cared about your comfort? "Are you sure I'm not a bother?" you ask, turning to face her.

"Not at all," she responds with a light, short laugh. "I wouldn't have you here if I thought we couldn't handle a kid walking the streets."  
  
You huff, flushing. Vivian laughs at you when you don't deny it. 

She comes back with enough blankets to turn you into a thick, meaty looking burrito. Against what your dignity demands, you roll yourself up like one the moment she leaves, turning off the lights for you as she goes, and find an alarming comfort in being confined. You're sit there for nearly an hour, with heavy eyelids but the customary wariness that dictates you stay awake in case you're caught, captured, about to be killed. Eventually your eyelids fall like a shutter to shield your irises from the minuscule remains of light in the room, and you're too far gone to see her peek in and raise her eyebrows in surprise at the sight of you bundled up like a child.

"Cute kid," she mutters, before shutting the door quietly so as to not wake you. She goes to join Georgie in bed. 

* * *

"Work. . . for you?" you repeat, bewildered.  
  
Vivian shifts, not nervously, and answers, "Yes. It's an option." When she notices the worry on your face, she immediately goes to explain, "We won't be putting you on stage, or. . . well. You'd be working the bar and cleaning. You're old enough to handle alcohol, right?"  
  
You nod. "Over twenty-one summers." You don't specify how old you are.

She eyes you strangely for putting your age that way, but you don't mind. That's how it was explained to you. You came into their grasp in summer, after all. A confused, weary child that they stole from her parents, putting them in the ground in a way that made it seem like they just abandoned her, rather than died. Been murdered.

The offer doesn't sound bad.

"So will you?" Vivian asks, sounding just a touch hopeful. You don't understand why she'd doing so much for you. While you were trained to recognize and decipher the meaning for emotions, it's sometimes hard when they're directed to you. Harder to distance yourself from the scenarios, to figure out the most possible reason for them. 

So that's why you don't suspect anything from Vivian, and that's why you say yes.

This simple agreement, this simple "yes", is what sets you up in the exact place the Crooked Man wants you in.


End file.
